Kim Tae-Yi, Hur Su-Mi, Ramírez-Hernández Abelardo
Department of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78249, United States.
Department of Polymer Engineering, Graduate School, Chonnam National University, Gwangju 61186, South Korea.
J Phys Chem B. 2023 Mar 23;127(11):2575-2586. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.2c07930. Epub 2023 Mar 14.
Solution self-assembly of multiblock polymers offers a platform to create complex functional self-assembled nanostructures. However, a complete understanding of the effect of the different single-molecule-level parameters and solution conditions on the self-assembled morphology is still lacking. In this work, we have used dissipative particle dynamics to investigate the solution self-assembly of symmetric ABCBA linear pentablock polymers in a selective solvent and examined the effect of the block sequence, composition, and polymer concentration on the final morphology and polymer conformations. We confirmed that block sequence has an effect on the self-assembled morphologies, and it has a strong influence on polymer conformations that give place to physical gels for the sequence where the solvophilic block is located in the middle of the macromolecule. Our results are summarized in terms of morphology diagrams in the composition-concentration parameter space.
多嵌段聚合物的溶液自组装提供了一个创建复杂功能性自组装纳米结构的平台。然而，目前仍缺乏对不同单分子水平参数和溶液条件对自组装形态影响的全面理解。在这项工作中，我们使用耗散粒子动力学来研究对称ABCBA线性五嵌段聚合物在选择性溶剂中的溶液自组装，并研究了嵌段序列、组成和聚合物浓度对最终形态和聚合物构象的影响。我们证实嵌段序列对自组装形态有影响，并且对聚合物构象有很大影响，对于亲溶剂嵌段位于大分子中间的序列会形成物理凝胶。我们的结果以组成-浓度参数空间中的形态图进行总结。
